Elements of Point Estimation Theory

Abstract

The problem of point estimation examined in this chapter is concerned with the estimation of the values of unknown parameters, or functions of parameters, that represent characteristics of interest relating to the probability space of some collection of economic, sociological, biological, or physical experiments. The outcomes generated by the collection of experiments are assumed to be outcomes of a random sample with some joint probability density function f(x ₁ ,...,x _n ; Θ). The random sample need not be from a population distribution, that is, it is not necessarily the case that X ₁ ,..., X _n are iid. The objective of point estimation will be to utilize functions of the random sample outcome to generate good (in some sense) estimates of the unknown characteristics of interest